


Transfer Incomplete

by A_Fool_in_Love



Series: Pieces [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: AU of an AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Fool_in_Love/pseuds/A_Fool_in_Love
Summary: Related to Broken Parts. It can be read separately, but if you plan to read Broken Parts as well please do read that one first.What if Hank had met Connor much, much sooner?
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor & Sumo
Series: Pieces [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633102
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	Transfer Incomplete

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Broken Parts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22024633) by [A_Fool_in_Love](https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Fool_in_Love/pseuds/A_Fool_in_Love). 



Everything was dark, soft and warm. There were sounds of people walking, machines whirring and beeping, and voices on an intercom… then voices very nearby: “What the fuck is this?” A man asked in a low and dangerous voice. It was nearly a growl. RK800 313248317 opened his eyes and looked for the sound of the voice. He sat up in bed and bunched his fingers in the thin sheet. The man looked awful. He looked tired, and his face was bruised and he was very angry at the women holding the papers.

“Dad?” RK800 asked, uncertainly.

“That thing,” the man growled and threw out a hand to point at him, “is not my son. Where the HELL is my son?”

“I understand that this is a shock,” said the woman quietly, “but this is Cole. When you signed the release for the trial, you agreed that this might happen… We weren’t able to save his physical body. I’m sorry.” She was pretty, with blonde hair in a ponytail and big eyes.

Cole watched them with building anxiety.

The man looked down at him and shook his head. His hands tightened into fists and his pale, tired face twisted with anger and grief. “That’s not my son.”

“The doctor transferred as much as he could,” the woman assured. “Just talk to him.”

The man looked at him again, and Cole tried to smile, but he was afraid and he looked pleadingly toward the woman. She smiled at him and nodded. Cole looked up at the man again. “Hello…”

The man shook his head. “I don’t know what to do with this. I can’t…” He took a deep breath and then exhaled it slowly. When he looked at Cole again, he still looked sad but his anger had dimmed. “You’re supposed to be Cole, huh?”

“I don’t know…” Cole whispered, because he wasn’t going to lie. “I don’t know what’s happening…”

“Fuck…” The man bowed his head and looked at the woman. “He doesn’t even know who he is and you expect me to take this… this piece of plastic home and treat it like my son.”

“Think of it like amnesia,” said the woman. Cole wasn’t sure who he wanted to win this argument. The woman didn’t seem bothered by his anger. She just kept smiling.

“I want to see him,” said the man. The woman frowned. “I want to see my son!” he repeated.

“I can’t recommend that, Mr. Anderson…”

“Now.” The woman hesitated, then nodded.

Cole watched while they left the room. Alone, he looked at himself. His hands moved when he wanted them to move, but they felt strange. He could feel everything that made them wave or bend. He could feel hair on his head and he was wearing white and grey clothes. His eyes widened when words appeared along his side in the air: _CyberLife uniform: custom order._ Curious, Cole slid to the side of the bed and dropped down. The floor was cold on his bare feet while he walked around the small room. There were cartoon fish painted on the pale blue walls and he smiled at them and touched the wall. Everything was smooth.

It became a game. Whenever he wondered hard about something, words came and told him what they were or something about them. He didn’t always know what they said or what they meant, but it was fun to see.

The door opened again and Cole straightened up from looking at the painting of a turtle. Mr. Anderson looked down at him. For a little while, Cole had forgotten that he would be coming back.

  * Family
  * Turtle
  * Face



Cole bit his lip. “I’m sorry,” he said instead, and the words turned red then disappeared. “Are you angry?”

“Come on,” Mr. Anderson said. “We’re going.”

We… Cole nodded and he trotted to keep up with him. Mr. Anderson had to stop at a desk, and the woman came back. She knelt down and smiled at Cole. She had nice blue eyes. “That’s your dad, sweetheart. It’s your job to take care of him, okay? He loves you very much. He’s just sad and scared right now. Be a good boy.”

[Take care of Mr. Anderson]

[Be good]

The words came up and then went away slowly. Cole nodded. “I’ll be good…” The woman glanced up and patted him on the back. “Go catch up.”

“Bye…” Cole said, then he ran to catch up to Mr. Anderson, who was on his way out the door. The ground outside was even colder. Mr. Anderson had a bag in his hand stuffed with papers and clothes, and Cole saw a shoe through the clear plastic. Maybe it had been for him, but Mr. Anderson kept on walking.

They went inside a taxi. Cole reached up to grab the safety belt then shook his head and pulled his hands away. A big feeling washed over him. It was stealing his air away and prickling down his back. “No… No, Dad we can’t! Get out! Get out!” He wasn’t sure why, but he was sure that this was bad. He pushed Mr. Anderson on the arm and when he didn’t move, he tried to reach past him to open Mr. Anderson’s door. Mr. Anderson grabbed Cole by the arms and Cole shrieked and struggled.

“We have to go! We have to get out! Please! We have to get out!” Mr. Anderson didn’t let him go, and Cole’s fear bubbled over into sobbing. “Please, we have to get out. Please!”

Mr. Anderson didn’t believe him. He shoved Cole down into his seat and buckled him in. Cole felt trapped and he tugged the belt away from his shoulder. “Sit down!” Mr. Anderson barked. Cole kept crying. [Sit down] wrote itself in red all over the safety belt and he let it go, shaking. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear anything from you.” That was hard. He tried. He covered his mouth with his hands, but it was hard to breathe. They were going to die. “115 Michigan Drive,” said Mr. Anderson. The taxi started moving. Cole trembled in his seat and whimpered and breathed wetly through his nose while he covered his mouth. They were going to die. They were going to die. They were going to die…

He wilted in his seat and stared at nothing. His brain had gone very quiet and he couldn’t move except to struggle to breathe.

“Pull over here,” Mr. Anderson said to the taxi. It did, and Mr. Anderson got out of the taxi. A few seconds later, he opened Cole’s door and unbuckled his seat. He stood there expectantly, then sighed and picked Cole up under the arms. Cole took a big breath and clung onto him with his arms around his neck and his face in the crook of his shoulder. Mr. Anderson inhaled sharply and went tense, then he pulled Cole off of him.

“No…” Cole protested, but he was set down on the ground anyway and he looked up at Mr. Anderson. His eyes were red and he just looked at Cole for a long, long time while the taxi waited. Cole sniffled and wiped his eyes on his arm then shivered. He wished Mr. Anderson were holding him again. He wished he had warm clothes. He wished they would get away from the taxi. Mr. Anderson looked at the road with a grim expression, then back at Cole. Then he bent down and picked him up, and Cole felt so relieved. He didn’t hold him close or hug him, he just picked him up and clenched his jaw a few times looking at the traffic. Maybe he was scared too.

“Don’t be scared…” Cole tried. He patted Mr. Anderson on the arm and tried to calm himself down too. “It’s over now… Dad?”

“Fucking shit…” Mr. Anderson swore quietly. He was still holding Cole up and his arms had started to shake. Cole wriggled and reached for Mr. Anderson’s shoulders, but his arms were too short for him to be able to reach. Then Mr. Anderson lifted him up high and walked around the front of the taxi. Were they going back inside?

“I don’t want to go in the car!” Cole insisted.

“Just…!” Lieutenant Anderson shouted, then he lowered his voice again. “Just stop talking…” He put Cole down again, and Cole grabbed his hand. He didn’t say anything, but he pushed himself close against Mr. Anderson and rested his head against his leg while he tried to stop crying. The cars going by whooshed and zoomed.

“Fuck… Come on, then…” Mr. Anderson muttered. He opened the taxi door, but he just took his bag and he started walking. Cole gasped and hurried to keep up. Good… No more car.

Mr. Anderson kept a very tight grip on Cole’s hand, even though Cole wouldn’t want to run away. He wanted to ask him to slow down, but he wasn’t supposed to talk. It was cold. “You’re an android aren’t you?” Mr. Anderson barked at him the third time he stumbled. Cole looked up at him miserably and said nothing. “Jesus Christ…” Mr. Anderson stooped and picked Cole up again, and this time he hooked his arm beneath Cole’s legs and Cole was able to wrap his arms around Mr. Anderson’s neck again. He shivered and tried to keep as much of himself tucked against Mr. Anderson’s jacket as he could. It would have been nice to have a jacket too. Cole dropped his head against Mr. Anderson’s shoulder and shut his eyes. For a while, his attention was taken up by the patches of himself that were warming up and the gentle bobbing that came from Mr. Anderson’s footsteps. Once his fear went away, he even got sleepy. Mr. Anderson cursed a little, and adjusted his hold on Cole, who heard the sound of keys jingling and the door opening. More jingling and clicking and barking. Cole didn't lift his head. He was comfortable, and the warm air in the house felt good after so much cold.

“Hey, down Sumo,” Mr. Anderson grumbled. “Come on, you big lug.” Without taking his shoes off, Mr. Anderson walked a little way and then started to put Cole down. He whined in sleepy protest and opened his eyes then, squinting and blinking up at Mr. Anderson as he was deposited on a couch. Mr. Anderson’s face was complicated and impossible to understand. Cole frowned in confusion while he tried to figure out what he should expect.

_Lt. Hank Anderson: conflicted, hopeful, grieved_

“What does conflicted mean?”

Mr. Anderson looked surprised, and then he knelt down in front of the couch and looked at Cole. He put his hands on the sides of Cole’s face and his eyes moved like he was looking at every place he could. His eyes were a nice grey-blue. “Are you in there? Are you actually in there somewhere?” He asked. His voice was rough.

“I don’t understand,” Cole said. He looked at Mr. Anderson. He was being nice, kind of. “In where?”

“In _there_ , “ he said. “In that machine. God, Cole…” Mr. Anderson bowed his head and Cole moved his hand to pet his hair.

“… Yes, Dad?”

“Fuck,” Mr. Anderson swore like he was spitting out the word. “Please just, Cole. Cole… I just fucking left him there… I just walked away like… I just left him there. What about his body?”

“Dad, I don’t know what you mean but it’s scary. Please stop.” Mr. Anderson dropped his hands down to Cole’s arms and he _squeezed_. Cole made a sound and he tried to wriggle free. He didn’t like this. He was supposed to be good, but Mr. Anderson was being strange. “Let go! That hurts!” It made red boxes and words flash in his eyes.

Mr. Anderson laughed a little, and Cole didn’t like it. “God, what did I let them talk me into… You don’t feel anything. You don’t even know who you are for fuck’s sake. You’re a God damned machine.” He tightened his left hand really hard and Cole whimpered. They both watched his skin flicker and white appear underneath like bones but not. “Just a fucking machine.” Mr. Anderson let him go and stood up, but Cole was transfixed by his arm. The skin was fading in and out in patches and he could see _inside of him_. He screamed, a short horrified thing with shaking breath. The skin on his arm rippled like it wanted to grow back but it couldn’t. He wanted to touch it but he didn’t. His other hand came close, but he pulled it away before he could feel what the white was. His second scream was more of a whimper and the static in it scared him. It didn’t feel like it should crackle like that, but it did.

Mr. Anderson was staring at him and his horror was easy to recognize. The dog started barking and whining. Oh. The dog was really big, and he climbed up on the sofa too and put his big paw on Cole’s lap and his head right up against his chest. Cole’s frantic little cries died down and the dog kept on nudging him until he dropped over sideways on the couch. The dog was very good, and he had big warm breaths and soft, soft fur. Cole was still so scared, though. He shut his eyes tight and cried. The dog laid on top of him and woofed once before settling. He was heavy. Cole didn’t know what he wanted but he just wanted _something_ so much it hurt with every breath. He wasn’t going to get it, and the feeling of need and longing settled into a sort of tiredness. It wasn’t terrifying to move anymore, and he slowly moved one hand to touch the dog’s fur. That was all he could manage, but it was good and he played with it between his fingers. Good dog. A few minutes later he slid his hand up to the dog’s soft, soft ears and he got licked on the face. When he could move his other hand he opened his eyes and petted the dog properly. Where was Mr. Anderson? Cole looked around wide-eyed and quickly found him. He was sitting in the big chair with a glass bottle in one hand and one elbow on his leg to prop up his drooping head. Cole didn’t know what to do. He just wanted to stay under the dog forever.

[Take care of Mr. Anderson]

[Be good]

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Cole whispered quietly. “Please don’t be sad. I’m sorry…”

\---

“Fuck. I can’t do this. I just can’t,” Hank said in a low voice. It had been short fucking notice and Jeff had his own family to worry about, but he had come anyway.

“You look like shit,” Jeff said. He was sitting on the couch facing Hank who hadn’t moved from his chair. The android had gone outside with Sumo some time and fuck if he knew when. “How’s your back?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Hank. It wasn’t like any part of him _didn’t_ hurt. Then that fucking android… Why’d God have to do this to him? “I can’t, Jeff. My Cole, I just… He was lying there and he wasn’t moving and I just left. How did I just leave? What the hell is going to happen to him? Then he just wouldn’t stop crying in the taxi. It was driving me crazy.”

Jeff frowned and leaned forward trying to catch his eye. Hank didn’t want to be looked at. He might have called Jeff, but having him look at just how fucked up he was… it was kind of scary. “Hank, what happened?” He was talking quietly, and Hank had to pay attention over his thoughts to hear him. “Was Cole there with you? You aren’t making any sense.”

“None of it does,” Hank lamented. He took another swallow of whiskey. He just wanted this whole day to have never existed. “He was just lying there,” he repeated, “and he wasn’t breathing but he looked like he should have just woken up. They, they took…” He gestured at his throat vaguely, “He wasn’t breathing anymore, and he looked so small.”

“Oh, Jesus…” Jeff stood up and walked over to pull Hank into a hug, and he just let it happen. You didn’t find a friend like Jeff every day, and Hank doubted he’d ever meet a man he trusted more. Fuck it. Jeff was the only damn person he had left.

“No,” Hank tried to explain. How could he find the words? “They wanted me to take this android home. They said it was Cole. Some kind of clinical trial I don’t know. I don’t even remember signing the thing. Some kind of memory recording or some shit, but he’s just not… That’s not Cole. How did I just walk away?”

“Hank,” Jeff took the whiskey from Hank’s hand and put it on the side table. “They sent you home with an android? What happened to Cole?”

“I just… I don’t know. That nurse, she said that it’s _him_ but that’s just a machine, Jeff. It didn’t even know who I am. Fuck. It just kept crying and I just about threw it into traffic, but I couldn’t. Cause what if he is in there somewhere, Jeff? What if? But fuck, what do they think, they can just replace my son?” He sat up straight. Disbelief and anger and grief were all there, shouting over each other.

Jeff went for anger. He straightened up and paced a line across the living room like he was ready to whip some recruits into shape. “This is bullshit. This is absolute bullshit.”

The door opened and shut, and Hank heard Sumo’s claws tapping on the kitchen floor. The door shut again. Hank sighed loudly and rubbed his face. He didn’t want to see it and keep on questioning everything. It even looked like Cole. One second he’d be angry enough to break it, and then he’d look at its face and _what if_?

“What the fuck,” Jeff muttered. Hank grabbed the bottle off the side table again and drank. Quiet in response except the sound of Sumo walking around, probably to sniff Jeff. “What the hell is this…” More quiet. “No. This can’t be healthy. We’re taking this back to CyberLife where it belongs. Fuck I can’t believe them manipulating a grieving father…”

“Dad?” The android spoke up. It sounded scared. Machines shouldn’t sound like that. Sumo barked.

“Leave it,” Hank mumbled and lifted his head.

Jeff looked incredulous. “What? You can’t be serious.”

The android, fuck, it ran over to him and grabbed hold of his arm. Hank just looked at it. It had exactly Cole’s hair. Almost everything identical, and it was looking at him like he’d fought off a lion. It shuffled closer. “Dad, I’ll be good. I promise.”

“Can’t you see that thing is manipulating you? It’s obvious.” Jeff frowned at him, then shook his head and took the army out of his expression. “Hank. You’re in a vulnerable place right now, and I don’t want to see you getting sucked into some corporate scheme.”

“I know,” said Hank. He could admit it. Hell, he thought it too. “You can’t ask me to throw it away, Jeff. Not when…” God, he just about choked on the lump in his throat and he covered his face with his free hand. “Not when it’s all I’ve fucking got.” The android was trying to give him a hug. He could have laughed at how ridiculous it was, a machine with no feelings trying to comfort him. As if it could possibly understand. He could have laughed if his life wasn’t a fucking pit full of shit.

“Hank…” Jeff sighed. “Okay… You’ve been through a lot. God knows you don’t need this to be any more traumatic. I’m staying here tonight. You can drink, cry, yell, talk, whatever you need but I’m going to keep you safe. In exchange you fucking tell me if I have to be worried, alright?”

One bad night and a couple years later Jeff still wasn’t letting it go. “Yeah,” Hank sighed. He couldn’t be angry at him. “Fine. Just, do whatever you want. Make yourself at home.” He waved his free hand. The android made an unhappy sound. “What do you want?” he asked it.

The android went still and loosened its grip just a little. “I don’t want anything.”

“Then can you just fuck off? I don’t want to look at you right now.” Maybe he was a dick. If Cole really was in there he was the worst kind of shit bag. It was an android, not his kid. If Cole was in there, Hank couldn’t see him.

“Where do I go?” the android asked quietly. It let him go and looked at him.

“I don’t care,” Hank sighed.

“Android, what model are you?” Jeff asked in his army voice.

“I don’t know...” the android looked at Jeff and latched onto Hank again.

“Come here,” Jeff said. It took a minute, but the android shuffled over, shoulders hunched. Jeff looked it over then pulled at the fabric of its shirt to get a good look at it. “RK800… Thought they were supposed to be YK, but it doesn’t matter.” Hank wondered what Jeff would do. Would he send it to Cole’s room? Something hurt his heart thinking about it, but Jeff knew him well after all these years. “Go stand out of the way. By the door. You’re going to stay there until one of us says otherwise.”

The android nodded with a look back at Hank that Hank didn’t want to see. Like it was hoping for something. Hank took another drink of whiskey and when he’d finished, the android had turned to find a place by the door.

What the fuck had his life become.

Jeff walked over and put his hand on Hank’s shoulder. “You need to process all this with a clear head. Try to get some rest tonight, huh? I’m gonna be right here taking up space on your couch.”

Yeah. He needed to think. He needed to think it through without that android looking at him with Cole’s face and without the mix of painkillers and whiskey clouding his head. “Sure, Jeff… Sure.”


End file.
